Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy (Italian Poetry in Translation Book 2)

and XLVI (“that the sea ─ even the sea ─ told

him / the ruins and treasures in which his

life passed”), to realize this is a poet who has

been able to bring poetic Latin to a

dimension of great existential tension. He

has done the same with his poetry written in

the dialect of Cappella, in the province of

Naples. The poet has stated (Cf. Via terra ─

Antologia di poesia neodialettale) edited by

Achille Serrao): “to write in dialect...means

more and more... bringing to light my voice,

my imagination, my anthropological-

expressive identity that is rooted in an

archaic territory called Campi Flegrei.

Dialect, then, not as flight toward the past,

nor as negation of the hic and nunc, or not

merely this, but as undeferrable necessity to

discover my roots to the end, opening my

cultural patrimony to original and primal

elements.”